1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention relates to devices for attaching a cooling member to the cooling surface of an integrated module.
2. Prior Art
Various devices and methods for mounting cooling members on individual semiconductor components are known in the art. Once such method consists of fastening the cooling member to the semiconductor module with screws. Another method makes use of a resilient design of the cooling member so as to permit the cooling member to be clamped in place on the module. Such methods and structure are not suited for mounting cooling members on integrated circuit modules, in particular integrated circuit modules have a plurality of terminal pins arranged on the lateral surfaces of the integrated module. A known method for attaching cooling members to such integrated modules employs an adhesive to directly cement the cooling member to the upper side of the integrated module. A disadvantage of this method is that the cooling member cannot be detached from the module without destruction thereof. Moreover, the possibility exists that the freshly cemented cooling member, during assembly work following attachment thereof, may slip or fall off because the cement layer has not yet sufficiently cured.
As stated above, it is known to detachably mount a cooling member on an integrated module by pressing the cooling member, with the aid of a spring clip, onto the integrated module from above. Spring clips of this type generally consist of spring steel sheet metal and thus present the possiblity of a short circuit. For this reason, safety requires that intermediate of layers of insulating material be disposed between the spring clip and the integrated module. This, however, has the disadvantage that assembly becomes correspondingly more expensive because of the increased material and time requirements. Additionally, conventional spring clips are designed so as to press fit onto the cooling member from above the integrated module, which adds to the total height of the assembly. Most installations have a specified component height which cannot be exceeded, therefor requiring the cooling member to be made correspondingly smaller, at the expense of cooling efficiency.